Extremely well done historical that takes place in the little used period/milieu of the Crimean War. The hero is an ex lancerman who rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade and suffers from terrible PTSD. He has been home from the war for about 6 months when he meets the heroine who is masquerading as a man in order to gamble for high stakes because she needs the money.

The weakest part of the story is the heroine's back history. I felt that the reason she left home could have been stronger and her trials and tribulations during her year away could have been made more of. That is really the reason that this got 4 stars instead of 5. The hero's story however is very well done. His background and experiences in Crimea are pretty complex and realistically portrayed. There was a lot of info about the Charge of the Light Brigade that I didn't know but it wasn't a heavy handed info dump. It all came out as the heroine was helping the hero deal with his PTSD.

The hero was very charming and there was quite a bit of witty repartee. The heroine also was a very nice person and I felt they fit together well and deserved each other. There was a bit of an obvious mystery but it was pretty well handled and I felt the villain had some pretty good emotional motive going on. for a crazy person There were some very explicit love scenes here. I sometimes have a problem with love scenes outside of marriage in historical romances but here they seemed an organic part of the story.

Looking forward to more by this author. ( )